


Milk and Honey

by Its_Raineing_Words



Series: Ghost Hunters [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Bisexual Dan Howell, Bisexual Male Character, Coming Out, Dreams and Nightmares, Gay Phil Lester, Gen, Ghost Drifting, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Period-Typical Homophobia, Psychic Abilities, Talking, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 08:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17484572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_Raineing_Words/pseuds/Its_Raineing_Words
Summary: Dan has a nightmare and Phil helps, late-night conversation ensues which goes exactly how all late-night conversations go, that is, emotionally.





	Milk and Honey

**Author's Note:**

> Took me ages to finish this but finally, here we are!

Run, run, run. Dan didn’t know who or what was chasing him he knew that if it caught him he would die. The ground beneath him seemed to lurch under him with every breath. Was that a growl he had heard? He couldn’t remember what had led him to be in this situation or indeed where he was, all he could think of was the fact that even though it felt like he had been running for hours he had covered no ground as if he was running on a treadmill. Suddenly the house that he had been running desperately towards disappeared as it was replaced with the ground rushing up to meet his face. I’m dead, he thought resignedly as he felt the monster draw near…

 

Dan woke up with a pounding heart and in a literal cold sweat, it only took him a second to realise that he wasn’t dreaming anymore but still the fear didn’t leave him. Instead, he reached for his phone and turned on his torch and moved it around his room just to check for danger in order to calm himself down. Everything was as it should be and so Dan could finally breathe a sigh of relief. As he settled back against his pillow however he heard the door creak and he bolted upright before he remembered that it was what Phil did to announce that he was entering a room when Dan wasn’t focusing on seeing spirits. A few moments of concentration later and Phil’s worried face was hovering near him.  
“What’s wrong? I sensed your fear.”  
“You can sense fear? That kind of creepy, just to let you know,” Dan replied, still not completely calm.  
Phil just shrugged, “Did you have a nightmare? I used to have those when I was alive, I don’t really remember what they were about but I do remember what my mother used to say to me ‘a nice cup of milk and honey can fix a world of problems’ and I’m inclined to agree.”   
“Well...might as well give it a try,” Dan replied, already heaving himself up from the bed, “Luckily for you, I’m not lactose intolerant.”  
“What’s that?”  
Dan considered for a moment, “Basically it’s like being allergic to dairy, you get the shits. Not pretty in the slightest.”  
“Oh...we didn’t have that in my day,” Phil’s eyes were wide.  
Dan just laughed as he padded to the kitchen, Phil floating along behind, “I’m sure you did but you thought it was demonic possession or something like that.”  
“Oi!” Phil tried to sound annoyed but the effect was severely lessened by the grin currently hanging from his cheeks as he floated behind him.

As the kitchen light flickered and turned on Dan tried to remember where he kept his honey. He was sure he had some but he wasn’t the type to put it on toast or in porridge or on cereal so he never really used it, he was just glad it couldn’t go off.  
“Phil, you don’t happen to have the ability to sense honey as well as fear, do you?” he asked as he crouched down to check his cereal cupboard on the off chance he had put it there.  
“Unfortunately no, if only...I would much rather sense honey than fear. It would be a lot more pleasant.”  
“I suppose it would be,” Dan closed the door to the cupboard and stood up, “I’m sure I have honey, I haven’t bought any in a while but I’m sure I have some.”  
Phil just shrugged as Dan began to look in the fridge, “You could go buy some, actually nevermind, shops probably aren’t open this late.”  
“Actually a fair amount of them are open but I don’t think I could be bothered to go out at this time just for some...nevermind! Found the honey!”   
“Oh good!”  
They fell into a companionable silence and Dan poured some milk into his favourite mug and squeezed a healthy dollop of honey into it and stirred. Phil tutted and said something about ‘times changing for the worse’ when Dan put the mug in the microwave.  
“I am not putting the stove on to boil one cup of milk and that is final,” Dan retorted, not bothering to look at Phil, instead focusing on the countdown of the microwave, “In fact, I’ve never used the stove to boil milk in my life.” 

Dan found himself curled up on his sofa and sipped his milk and honey while Phil looked at him expectantly.  
“Is it any good?” He asked, leaning forward from where he was hovering above the other side of the sofa from where Dan was sat. He made sure not to be touching the human as it made Dan feel weird to have Phil phase through him.   
“It’s not too bad though I’m not sure if it’ll help me get to sleep or anything like that,” Dan sighed, leaning back.  
The ghost hummed, “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” No one spoke for a long time and Dan just sipped at his drink contentedly before Phil spoke again, “What was your nightmare about? You don’t have to tell me but maybe it’ll help,” he shrugged, “but only if you’re comfortable.”  
Dan considered for a second, what at the time had been a vision of terror had faded to the back of his mind and he felt calm again. It couldn’t be too bad, could it? Well, Phil could judge him but he knew in his gut that he had to be honest.   
“It was about something that happened to me in school. I was beaten up,” Phil gasped and looked heartbroken for him and Dan’s lips quirked up in the phantom of a smile, “It’s fine. It was a long time ago and I haven’t seen any of them for years and years now. They uh...they didn’t like me because of something I couldn’t change about myself. I’m,” he fumbled for the words, not wanting to disgust the spirit who probably would have a problem with it, “I’m gay, you see, well technically bisexual but the distinction didn’t matter to them.”   
“Gay? As in, happy?”   
“No, as in homosexual.”  
Phil’s eyes widened and Dan felt a thunderbolt of fear strike through him, of course, Phil would have a problem with it! Just as he was going to backtrack somehow he spoke.  
“Oh...I had hoped things had changed,” Phil looked like he was a second away from crying.  
“They have! They really have! Just...some people still aren’t ok with it, that’s all. But we can walk down the street holding hands, or even kiss and it’s all legal. We can even get married!”  
Phil looked like he would have fainted if that would have been possible, “What?” He gasped.  
“Yes!” Dan said triumphantly, “It’s so much better now. I need to show you sometime.”  
“But married? How is that possible?”  
“Well it took a lot of people protesting for it to happen but I think the world was finally ready for it,” Dan explained.   
“But what about the church? Surely they don’t accept it.”  
Dan hummed, “It’s complicated. Some churches, most churches even, don’t really have a problem with it or if they do they keep it to themselves but I won’t lie there definitely are people who still have a problem with us. They think that we’re ‘unnatural’ or some bollocks like that,” he shrugged, “Nothing to be done about them, they’ll die eventually and the future generations won’t have to put up with their bullshit.”  
Phil looked at Dan with a blank face, an expression Dan knew was only there to hide the emotions underneath. He looked away to give the spirit some time to himself.   
“That’s certainly more than I could have ever imagined would happen in my wildest dreams...that has given me a lot to think about. I really was born in the wrong time, it seems.”  
Dan gimanced to himself, Phil wasn’t wrong really, things would have been a lot easier for him if he had been born. Still, he thought, there wasn’t much point in obsessing over hypothetical situations that can never happen.  
“How did you know you were...homosexual?” He didn’t know if the question would upset Phil but he felt like he needed to know.  
Phil leaned backwards in a way that would have toppled him over if he had been living and would have disturbed Dan if he hadn’t grown used to it, “Well for the longest time I didn’t notice that there was anything wrong with me,” Dan winced at the phrase but of course Phil would see it that way, “but then the boys around me started to talk about how pretty certain girls were and things like that. I could see that they were sweet and kind but I didn’t want to do anything with them, wholesome or otherwise. And I knew something about me was different but I didn’t think about it much; my father always said that I was just a late developer but then…” he paused, ringing his hands together and Dan knew that the words that would follow were ones that Phil had never spoken aloud to anyone, “I started to notice the boys around me, they made me feel what I should have felt for women but I couldn’t. It was then that I knew that I was cursed to hide my true self from the world, but how could I? Then again, what else could I do? My father was trying to get me married but I fought it for a while, not wanting to force some poor girl into marriage with me. Eventually I agreed and match was made with a girl from a neighbouring farm but I...I died before the marriage took place.”

Neither of them spoke for a long while, Phil looked as if talking about such a thing had exhausted him and Dan was taking it all in. He knew in his heart that if he had been born when Phil had he would have gone through the same thing, well, he could have ignored his attraction to men but still it would have been a lie. Coming to terms with his sexuality had been extremely hard but he could only imagine that Phil hadn’t come to terms with it or accepted it as natural. But how could he have done? There were no rolemodels for him, no one to tell him that he wasn’t a monster. He blinked back the tears that were forming in his eyes.  
“Well, this honey and milk idea helped more than I thought it would, I think it’s time for this human to go back to bed. I’ll uh, leave you to it.”  
Phil nodded gratefully and floated over to the window where he stared wistfully out of it. 

Back in his bed it took Dan a long while before he went to sleep again and when he did he dreamt of a boy with piercing blue eyes starting at his school back when he was thirteen...

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) any constructive criticism/general ego stroking never goes amiss haha


End file.
